Social web at your mobile fingertips

I don’t know about anyone else, but when my Blackberry isn’t ringing off the hook, buzzing due to an unread text message, or alerting me of incoming emails that need my attention, I feel lost. I feel as though my thumbs – which are now incessantly tapping any fixed or moving objects – should be poking away at the little keys. Stationary fingers feel like strange. Can anyone else relate?

Fortunately, for anyone who feels as though their thumbs should continue to tap, tap, tap away at the keys on their cellphone for no apparent reason, there are services which will promote continual mobile handset usage provoking your fingers to message away.

So what are your options for maintaining constant interactivity with your handset when the girlfriend / boyfriend & work related message cease to arrive?

• Upoc – If socializing with hundreds of individuals who share similar interests and perspectives entices you to continue SMS’ing complete strangers, check out Upoc. Billed as the “Premier Mobile Community”, Upoc offers users free group chats via SMS organized by interests, lifestyles, preferences, and favorites to name a few. The servie is completely free and is guaranteed to max out the text messaging aspect of your wireless account.
• Dodgeball – Previously mentioned back in May of 2005, Dodgeball was eventually snatched up by Google providing the financial backing for web based mobile social community. Although Dodgeball offers similar functionality of group SMS announcements, the main focus of the service was to alert users of the presence of fellow users within the a certain check-in vicinity. Not much looks to have changed since the announcement that Google was “checking-in” but activity still looks to be active.
• Groovr – A fairly new contender to the scene of social networking via SMS, the service embraces all the ideas of group SMS messaging, mobile photo sharing, and what looks like a similar idea to Google’s Dodgeball service – location aware check-ins. The idea is that users check-in wherever they are allowing their contacts to locate them based on simple SMS queries sent directly from a mobile handset. (Notably mentioned here and here)

Need an excuse to waste time and keep that cellphone of yours from hiding inside your pocket? While I enjoy the novelty of being able to SMS a general query to a group and receive results of everyones whereabouts, I think I would much rather prefer the ‘ol speed dial “Where the heck are you?!” methodology of “checkin’ in” with contacts. What are your thoughts concerning these types of services?